A Play Based Curriculum For Lifelong Learning As A Form Of Fantasy Play

Play is satisfying to the child, creative for the child and freely chosen by the child.

Cooperative play - Cooperative play occurs in the later preschool years. Children are able to take on roles and sustain them for the duration of the play. The group of children have agreed upon goals and roles for the play. In this stage of play, leaders and followers emerge within groups. Roles are delegated and tasks distributed within the group. There is a common goal and children will play together in a more complex

I believe that children learn through play. In play, children make choices, solve problems, converse, negotiate and resolve conflicts. They practice and develop physical, social, intellectual, and language abilities. As they play, children are able to express and work out emotional aspects of everyday experiences and events they discover upsetting. Through playing together and participate in different roles, children also develop in their skills to perceive something from another person’s perspectives and to involve in leading and following behaviors—both of which they will need to get along well as adults. In all these ways, play can be a milieu

Through play, children are also able to form relationships with their peers, therefore developing socially. They are able to “learn how to work in groups, to share, to negotiate, to resolve conflicts, and to learn self-advocacy skills” all of which are important skills in a child’s world as well as the adult world (Ginsberg 183). This is especially prevalent in young school age children, who have had relatively few social encounters without the presence of their parents before entering school. These young children will often make life time friends by sharing a popular treat at snack time or borrowing a color crayon to another child who has broken theirs.

On my first day at Discovery school, I noticed that during free play there were some kids who played by themselves, though they seemed to want to play with the other but were hesitant when they tried to enter the groups. This indicates to me these two children have difficulty with group play. Other than that the rest of the children seemed to enjoy playing together but didn‘t want to accept other children in their play once groups were formed. A lot of the children seemed to be interested in building and manipulating objects, for example, some were building with large blocks and others were making things, like flowers, and a bubble wand, out of connecting toys. For the majority of the time, though they were interested in me and wanted me to join them in their play.

From an early age children are known to engage in a number of activities in which would feed their curiosity alongside aiding their development. The main activity in which they would willingly participate in would be pretend play; play is not something which is only done by children however can be performed by adults and even animals.

Social play becomes more prominent during preschool age when children being to socialise with other children and practitioners within the pre-school. They tend to carry on playing alone but will play near a wide range of their peers. The development change involved in this types of play is pre-schoolers cognitive development. Social play involves children interacting with their peers and practitioners in the setting this can be done using speaking, signing and body language. When participating in social play this can involve game rules that the children have to communicate and consider when playing together.

I argue that we should impose a ban on the sale of superhero related products intended for minors. Superhero items stunts development because of violence and imagination confining scripted toys. We, therefore, should turn to different types of activities that foster a safer environment and healthier attitude towards play time.

Gerard Jones is quite a fan of The Hulk and Tarzan comic books. In his essay “Violent Media is Good for Kids” Jones argues that the violence in those and other comics teach valuable lessons that will help children understand difficult emotions. Jones states that in “try (ing) to protect our children from their own feelings and fantasies, we shelter them not against violence but against power and selfhood.” Throughout the essay Jones relies on personal anecdotes that reveal his opinions about violence in comics and other media instead of citing formal research. Jones’ personal experience is that violent media is not generally harmful, and fills an important place in childhood imagination and play.

By doing so, they were able to figure out how children preferred to engage in a series of different play-based activities. They had the opportunity to work alone or with another partner. They focused the study on “solitary play” vs “peer play”. If the child chose to play alone they considered it solitary play, whereas if the child chose to play with his/her peers they considered it to be peer play. The examiners expected the children that chose to play alone to be the students that had behavioral disorders or disabilities in social engagement with their peers. The next question for the examiners to focus on was whether or not the child was strictly shy, or if they were experiencing a preference to play by themselves, rather than with their

Engaging in recreation is a process by which children can learn from. Great quality play

Asher and Cole (1990) suggest it is necessary for children to establish the common play themes within the group before initiating interaction. Findings by Brunder and Chen (2007) also highlight the importance of social relationships within play, and explain that it is a requirement to share and collaborate with peers to achieve a goal. The conflict arisen in these findings have similar results to research carried out by Koocher and Greca (2011), who propose that negative responses in play could be due to the difference in

Superheroes are the fictional embodiment of all of our greatest aspirations, they are also a symbol of hope and give everyday people a lightness in times of hardship or struggle. Sometimes people need something to take their attention off of everyday things. From the day we are able to walk, people want to run, but what happens after we run? We want to run faster, jump or even fly. As people, we naturally want to be able to do more. Since we can’t do these things that we all dream about doing, people write and tell stories about people that can do the things we can’t.

Merchandise, action figures, posters, video games, clothing continues to add to the genre’s increasing popularity. While many superhero movies can be quite inspirational and serve as good entertainment and also have a positive impact on the audience, sometimes they can have a negative effect as well. This includes racism, violent behavior, etc. This arises the question of why superheroes are so popular and if that is a good thing or a bad thing.

When children engage in play, with varied materials, objects, people, and ideas they can explore their environment with confidence, and make connections with their social and natural worlds. (Fellowes and Oakley, 2014). Additionally, it is extremely important that we keep the children engaged, ensuring they are immersed in a positive experience, and in turn will allow the children to have a positive attitude towards learning and literacy (Fellowes and Oakley, 2014). As Fellowes and Oakley state that through play children “wonder, explore, think, create, imagine, make decisions, problem solve, interact and work cooperatively with others” (Fellowes and Oakley, 2014). All these are key experience children